


Shut Up and Skate With Me

by littledust



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: F/M, Ice Skating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-09 02:49:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5522636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littledust/pseuds/littledust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Hey," Shitty says, and Lardo almost crushes her cup in her hand, just to stop from feeling <i>whatever</i> she's feeling at the softness in his voice. "You wanna hang out tomorrow? No schoolwork, no worrying about art shows or law schools. Just you and me, mano a mano."</p>
<p>(Or: in which Lardo finally learns how to skate, and other stuff happens, too.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shut Up and Skate With Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [delgaserasca](https://archiveofourown.org/users/delgaserasca/gifts).



> A treat for you, dear recipient! Your letter led me to your tumblr, where you reblogged some _excellent_ Shitty/Lardo content. This is my little thank you for your awesome taste. ♥

"Brah. _Brah_ ," Shitty says, sitting up in bed. "The snow is too damn high."

Lardo pokes his side with her big toe. "Dude, _you're_ too damn high. This is not news." The first two blizzards of 2015 were fun, with many a drunken snow adventure. Then the weather dumped even more snow on them earlier this week, canceling Monday classes for, like, the fourth week in a row and piling snow so high maintenance could barely shovel the walkways. Frankly, it's amazing they haven't lost any of the frogs in the snow yet, especially Chowder.

Lardo _likes_ her Monday sculpture class, damn it. Also Chowder.

Shitty hands the pen back to her, leaning way too close in the process. Lardo doesn't know whether to back away from the unholy glee in his eyes, or put their heads together to start plotting. The latter is the obvious choice, but getting that close to Shitty feels… dangerous. "But," Shitty whispers, "it is the name of the next Haus party. And it is happening _tonight_."

"Shit," Lardo says. "You are so goddamn right."

If there were some kind of kegster planning playoffs, Lardo's a thousand percent certain Samwell would win the Stanley Cup equivalent. Shitty has this epiphany while high as a kite at twelve freaking PM on the day of the party. He texts the rest of the team at 12:01 PM.

By 8:00 PM, the Haus is kegster ready, and the party doesn't even start until 9:00. There's a table for flip cup and a table for pong, truly horrifying tub juice primed and ready, huge bowls of chips and salsa, freaking cookies shaped like sleds and snowflakes because Bitty took the theme of the party and ran with it, and a trending hashtag on Twitter.

"I'm telling you, we can make this a play somehow," Holster says to Jack, who's been helping Bitty in the kitchen all afternoon. Probably kissing when they think no one is around, too; they're not fooling anyone at this point, least of all Lardo.

Jack looks blank at Holster's remark, but like on purpose, fucking with you blank, instead of confused by pop culture blank. "Setting up flip cup on the ice?"

"No, like, the _willpower_ that made this all happen," Holster says, clenching his fist. "You say party, and we ask how high!"

"THE SNOW IS TOO DAMN HIGH!" Lardo shouts along with the rest of her teammates, pumping her fist in the air.

Even though arriving at a party on time is for chumps, probably half the population of Samwell is at the Haus by 9:15. Ransom and Holster are drawing snowflakes on their shirts for every beer that they drink, but the horny women of Samwell have taken this as an invitation to leave their phone numbers on their shirts. Rans might also have a phone number written on his butt; Lardo isn't gonna get close enough to check. Near the basement door, Bitty is cooing over Chowder and his new girlfriend with Jack standing nearby, giving the occasional nod at the stream of excited chatter. Lardo spots the rest of the frogs on their way down the the basement, where hopefully Nursey and Dex won't annoy each other to death. She feels like a night off from babysitting the youths.

"Dude," Lardo says, when Shitty makes his grand debut on the staircase. "Let me make you a badge."

Shitty grins and snaps his white suspenders against his bare chest. He found some white bell bottom pants and a white top hat to match, probably in the trunk of weird clothes he kept purely for costume party purposes. "Gimme a catchy slogan. I'm a political party leader now."

"Mm-hmm." Lardo finishes the last swirl in her design, then tears the page out of her sketchbook. One chip clip stolen from a bag on the snack table, and Shitty sports a badge that says I WILL REGRET WEARING WHITE PANTS.

He squints, reading the sign upside down. "Yeah, I guess I can't argue with that."

Lardo gives him a shove. "Go serve up some tub juice."

Many, many drinks later, Lardo isn't in a great mood. At first she blames it on the frogs, who don't seem to get the importance of carrying on the Haus legacy of total flip cup dominance. "You say you don't have time to practice? So what if you have classes?" she demands. "I will graduate with eleven billion credits and honor upon my Haus."

"Honor on your cow," Chowder whispers, reflexively. His face is bathed in the warm flush of one Natty Light.

"But it will be _dishonor_ if you don't put in the work! As your team manager, I order you to practice flip cup every goddamn day until you can make grown men weep with the power of your game." Lardo scowls and uses all sixty-one inches at her disposal to loom over the hapless frogs.

At this point, Bitty shimmies his way through the crowd, probably sensing that Lardo is about to bite off three frog heads but unwilling to stop getting down to Sia. "Good lord, what are you saying to them?" he asks. "They look terrified."

Lardo mutters something about _legacies, gotta go get another drink_ and books it. Bitty looks a little hurt, but then Chowder drops an arm around Bitty, one arm still around his girlfriend's waist, and then looks between Dex and Nursey, obviously trying to summon two more arms to hug all of his teammates. It's so very drunk Chowder that the group bursts out laughing, and even Lardo feels a little less shitty on her way up the stairs.

She finds Shitty on the porch extolling the wonders of tub juice to all who cross his path. Some are even unfortunate enough to believe him.

"As team manager, I feel like I should tell you that you can't poison people," she says, snagging a beer out of one of the giant snow piles. She's willing to trust nature's cooler with Shitty there to make sure no one steals her beer. "Also that you're not immune to hypothermia."

"Bro, you should be used to me by now." Shitty shrugs, leans against a snow pile, and immediately jerks away, swearing.

Lardo looks down at her empty cup. "Well, yeah."

It should be impossible to maintain an awkward silence with an earth-shaking party happening two feet away, but she and Shitty manage it.

"Hey," Shitty says, and Lardo almost crushes her cup in her hand, just to stop from feeling _whatever_ she's feeling at the softness in his voice. "You wanna hang out tomorrow? No schoolwork, no worrying about art shows or law schools. Just you and me, mano a mano."

It's weird that he has to ask, since they hang out solo all the time anyway, but the whole night is weird. The whole _thing_ is weird. Clearly the best way to deal is for Lardo to agree and then drink as much as humanly possible. "I'm in. Gimme some tub juice, man."

*

Lardo wakes up feeling like an angry sea urchin is lodged in her left temple. If she moves very, very slowly and quietly, without opening her eyes, she might be able to avoid further wrath.

"Lards…" comes a corpselike moan from the floor.

"Shh," Lardo says. She starts to raise a finger to her lips, but the sea urchin throbs. "So much hangover. Sleeping now."

"...dying…"

Not even Shitty's plaintive whimpering can get Lardo to peel open an eyelid. She'd be more worried if Shitty were silent--if he's awake and talking, he's got a good chance of making it through Hangover City. What the fuck was in that tub juice, anyway? Lardo knows her tolerance, and it's a _lot_ of booze. She must have felt like getting good and drunk last night, which would explain both their delicate states. Shitty uses her as a measuring tool sometimes: stop one drink before Lardo does and avoid a hangover.

Just not this morning.

She gets a good twenty minutes more of dozing before the shower in the bathroom starts up. Not Bitty, thank God, because the sea urchin in her brain would not appreciate contemporary female pop songs. This shower is pure silence except for rushing water, the hallmark of Jack Zimmermann.

A few minutes later, the bathroom door opens and shuts again. The dulcet strains of Beyonce's "XO" fill the air.

Lardo, Shitty, and the sea urchin are about to experience Jack and Bitty showering together in full surround sound.

" _Shitty_ ," Lardo whispers. "I know we're both dead right now, but we have to get out of here."

"No, no," Shitty mumbles. He sounds muffled by more than sleep; Lardo guesses that he rolled over and is now facedown on the rug like a champion. "'S a beautiful, natural event. Happy for them."

"Can we be happy for them and not listen to them hook up in the shower?" Oh, too many words. The sea urchin sinks deeper into Lardo's soft tissues. It takes all of her strength to force her eyes open. At least Shitty's blinds are always drawn lest he blind the neighbors with casual nudity. Although that happens on such a regular basis they've given up filing complaints.

" _In the darkest night hour, I'll search through the crowd! Your face is all that I see…_ "

Shitty sits bolt upright. He has a major case of bedhead (floorhead?) and he's wearing exactly one suspender clipped to his boxers. After a couple seconds, he says, "Nah, brah, I think they're just showering off last night."

"...you know what it sounds like when Zimmermann has sex in the shower?" Lardo doesn't know why this surprises her. Maybe it's Jack and sex in the same sentence.

Shitty tries to waggle his eyebrows, but the expression turns into a wince. He rummages around on the floor and slips on the pair of shades he finds there. "You learn things about a guy when you share a bathroom."

Lardo forces herself into a sitting position, despite the protestations of the sea urchin and every muscle in her body. "So what you're saying is you've heard Zimmermann… _jacking off_."

It's not her best pun or her best masturbation joke by a long shot, but it's damn impressive in the aftermath of drinking tub juice by the gallon. Shitty puts his head on his knees and starts cry-laughing as Bitty warbles on in the shower. Lardo has to laugh, too, because Shitty looks like such a dumbass on the floor. She's told him that sharing a bed is cool, but for a guy who hates chivalry and punches hipsters who say "milady," Shitty always takes the floor when she spends the night.

Kinda weird if she thinks about it too hard. Luckily, the sea urchin is there to prevent thinking in general.

"We need food and water," Lardo says. She glances over at Shitty's alarm clock. "Dude, it's like nine o'clock. Are we old enough to wake up this early?"

"Nah, but maybe we can make it to the dining hall before all the french toast sticks and fake scrambled eggs are gone."

The prospect of greasy, heavy french toast sticks and scrambled eggs made from a box is enough to make them struggle into fresh clothes (Lardo always keeps a couple changes of clothing at the Haus) and trek across the winter not-so-wonderland that is campus. Lardo feels a little bit like a new sailor still finding her sea legs, but at least the sea urchin vanished to whatever hellscape it came from after she chugged two glasses of water in a row.

Every so often, Lardo likes being up before the average college student. With the snow piled high around them, she and Shitty could be in another world. The sparkle of sun on the snowbanks is hard on the hungover eyes, but that's what sunglasses are for.

"Today's our man date or whatever," Lardo says as they near the dining hall. Blurry conversations from last night are growing sharper as she wakes up. "You got something planned?"

Shitty grins and pats his coat pocket. Shitty being Shitty, his coat isn't fastened despite the cold, but he _is_ wearing one. February: truly the coldest month. "Gonna do a little skating after we eat our weight in grease."

Lardo develops a sinking feeling that starts at the top of her stomach and lands somewhere around her two left feet. "So, I'm gonna watch you skate?"

"Bro," Shitty says, looking wounded. "A hockey manager should know how to handle herself out on the ice."

"I regret our entire friendship," Lardo informs Shitty as they swipe in at the dining hall and grab trays. There are only a handful of people there at this hour and, as predicted, there are heaping mounds of french toast sticks and scrambled eggs. Hash browns, too, and Lardo takes two scoops for good measure. Never know when Ransom and Holster will rampage through breakfast.

Ice skating sounds like a fun skill to know, in theory. In practice, Lardo has crap balance and totally lost her temper the one time Shitty tried to teach her last year. He shook it off, but the memory of yelling at her best friend for no reason other than hurt pride still makes Lardo sick to her stomach. She's always prided herself on her unflappable nature. Shitty gets under her skin, somehow.

"You're serious?" Lardo asks as they set their full trays down at an empty table. Shitty nods, already stuffing forkfuls of scrambled eggs in his mouth at a rate as impressive as it is disgusting. "Your deepest, darkest desire is to see me fall on my ass and then kick _your_ ass."

Shitty swallows like a boa constrictor eating an antelope. (Lardo files that image away under "future paintings.") "You got it. You can pick the next activity, okay? And I promise I'll make it worth your while."

With Shitty, that means one of two things: booze or weed. Since Lardo is never drinking again, for real this time, it must mean weed. Lying out on the ice getting high might be cool, kind of like that scene in _Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind_. "Okay," Lardo says. "Let's see what you got."

She has only herself to blame when Shitty starts singing Sublime. Well, singing is one word for it.

*

When they leave the dining hall, fortified with questionable french toast sticks, about a million things look more appealing than wobbling around the Pond in full view of the… okay, the handful of people who are awake and outside on a Saturday morning. The point is, Lardo is entirely justified when she yells, "Call me Han Solo, 'cause I shot first!" and creams Shitty with a snowball.

Shitty stays perfectly still, blinking as clumps of snow slide off his mustache. Lardo, already reaching down to scoop up more snow, hesitates for a second. Did she actually manage to piss him off? Or hurt his feelings? Her fingers shape the snowball from sheer muscle memory, but a quiver of doubt runs through her for just a second.

Just a second is all Shitty needs to wrap his arms around a giant snowdrift and hurl it in Lardo's direction as he shouts something about the Empire. The snowdrift is dry enough that most of it spins through the air as harmless powder, but there's so much that Lardo has to close her eyes against the cold spray of snow on her face. With reflexes born of dozens of snowball fights, Lardo hurls her snowball and opens her eyes in time to see it burst on Shitty's practically bare chest.

"As you wish!" Shitty bellows in his best Dread Pirate Roberts voice. (Whatever, he's totally Buttercup in this scenario.) He swings his arms in the direction of another giant snowdrift.

Lardo breaks for the Pond, thankful that her boots have decent traction in snow. No way will Shitty break up a snowball fight to go ice skating, and there are some rocks to shelter behind as she wages war. She skids on a hidden patch of ice, but turns the fall into a slide that takes her behind a snow-covered mound she's pretty sure was once a bench. It's perfect cover, and there's ample ammunition all around. "Say hello to my little friends!" she cries as Shitty slips past on the same patch of ice, and pelts him with hastily assembled snowballs.

"FOR FREEDOM!" is Shitty's response, because apparently this is a movie quote snowball showdown. Holster is going to murder them for playing without him. Shitty charges forward despite the snowballs Lardo keeps hurling. He jumps over the snow-covered bench and tackles her to the ground, managing a noogie as they both topple.

What Lardo wants to say is, "Yo, Incredible Bulk, I can't move." What comes out is shrieking, unabashed laughter, like they're a couple of kids on a playground. And really, that's the best description of Samwell anyone will ever make.

Then she realizes that Shitty's face is directly above hers, and his eyes are very, very green.

"I win," Shitty says, his teeth flashing white underneath his mustache. "You skate."

"I skate," Lardo says, breathless with laughter and something she'll think about later. Like, maybe thirty years later. Shitty rolls off her and reaches out a hand to help her up. Lardo takes it with a muttered thanks, then spends longer than necessary brushing all the snow off herself.

There's a bag containing two pairs of skates stashed near the Pond, proof that Shitty moves in mysterious ways. (Well, that's what he says, anyway. Lardo suspects that Shitty enlisted the frogs yesterday, which suggests he actually _planned_ this whole hangout thing they're doing. Mysterious ways indeed.)

"The skates actually fit," Lardo says, impressed in spite of the ice gleaming before her, waiting to bruise her ass as she falls on it.

"Bits borrowed 'em from a Wellie who still figure skates," Shitty says, lacing up his own skates. "He says she's about your height. Just got new skates, too, so if you wanna repeat this activity, she'll sell 'em."

Lardo mutters a curse as she tries to get up in the skates. The snow leading down to the Pond is slick, almost ice itself. Unlike a rink, there's nothing to hold onto except Shitty. When the inevitable happens and she starts to fall, that's exactly who she grabs. "Aughaughaughaugh," she says as her feet move in opposite directions. Like yelling, but calmly.

"Bro," Shitty says, not unsympathetically. He wraps an arm around her waist and steers her toward the ice. "You really suck at this."

"That's why I didn't want to do it," Lardo says through clenched teeth. She's not so much mad as using all of her willpower to stay upright.

Shitty unwinds his arm, but takes both of her hands in his with a gentleness he usually reserves for friends going through breakups and copies of Toni Morrison's books. Lardo looks down at his mittened hands encompassing hers. They're so warm she can feel them through her gloves.

"Doesn't mean I won't try," Lardo says in response to his unasked question. "So bring it."

Out on the Pond, they might as well be the only two people on campus. The hour is still too early for most college students, and the huge mounds of snow make it impossible to see much beyond the Pond. The sky is achingly blue, relieved by the occasional wisp of pure white cloud. It's a winter sky to make a person long for summer; it's a study in contrasts that makes Lardo wish for a paintbrush.

Of course, she's admiring the winter sky because she's flat on her back, the ice cold underneath her.

Shitty crouches down beside her, somehow balancing on his hockey skates. Well, dude has quads and glutes of steel from hockey. He extends his middle finger towards her face. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

Lardo flips him off right back. "I didn't hit my head, just my ass. I'll keep you updated on all the different colors the bruise turns."

He waggles his eyebrows in a way that, when paired with the mustache, makes him look like the star of a hockey-themed porn film. "Sick. Want a hand up, or you still admiring the view?"

"Just a sec." Lardo squints. "Does that cloud look like…?"

Shitty follows the direction her finger is pointing. "Yeah, brah, that is definitely a giant floating wang."

"Mother Nature can pop a boner, who knew?" Lardo holds out both her arms, zombie style. "Now I'm ready to get up. Nature inspired me."

Shitty hauls her to her feet. When her knees wobble again, he steadies her by pulling her against his chest. "Sorry," he mutters. At a more normal volume, he adds, "So like, I want you to try staring straight ahead. Pick something and stare it down like it's the last cup during a game of beer pong. It'll help you relax and it'll keep you from looking down all the time, which I think are your two main issues."

Lardo nods, her cheeks heating. It's just embarrassment that skating is so hard for her, never mind that Shitty is still hugging her to his chest. Whatever, he's hugged her a thousand times, but she's never noticed how well she fits just under his chin. "Got it, teach," she says gruffly, and pushes away.

The problem with knowing somebody so well? She doesn't look back, but she can picture the sadness on Shitty's face, sadness that goes deeper than him moving on to law school and her staying at Samwell for the next two years. That kind of sadness, she doesn't know how to fix, so she just glares straight ahead at a tree that's essentially just a giant snowdrift with branches.

"Hey, man, you're not falling over!" Shitty exclaims as Lardo begins a tentative gliding motion, barely moving over the ice. "See, I knew if you had something to death stare, you'd make it."

"If I develop laser vision from this, I'm gonna have to become a comic book artist," Lardo says.

With some of the overwhelming terror of gravity removed, ice skating is actually kind of fun. Timidity isn't really part of Lardo's nature, so it isn't long before she's pushing off the ice with more strength, testing her balancing abilities against the sudden need for speed. Because Shitty is Shitty, he has completely mastered the art of skating backwards while rambling about whatever he's reading, interspersed with occasional advice for her, and he does all of this _without_ coming across as condescending or douche-y.

"Gonna miss you when you're gone," Lardo says. With the wind reddening her cheeks and her arms outstretched like wings, she can say things like that without sounding too pathetic.

"Aw, dude," Shitty says, stopping in the middle of the Pond. He sniffles. "Don't just spring that on a guy!"

Lardo executes a _deeply_ flawed turn in Shitty's direction, but the point is that she actually manages to do it without coming to a crashing halt. The main flaw in the turn is that it puts her right up close to Shitty again. She's standing in front of him, gazing into his face like an idiot, but at least she's on her own two feet this time. God, between blue skies and green eyes, Lardo is one breath away from tumbling into a romantic comedy.

Or maybe half a breath, as Shitty takes her hands in his again.

His weird request to spend a whole day with her. The ice skates in just her size. The tension stretching between them, which Lardo has done her best to ignore except when she and Bitty let themselves indulge in a little self-pity.

"Dude, we're out on a date," Lardo says, amazed.

Shitty, the man who could streak through a nursing home unashamed, goes bright red. "I, uh, if you want it to be," he says. "I just have, like, feelings, profound and un-bro-like feelings about you. You're my best friend no matter what, Lards, but I thought you should know. Not that you have to do anything now that you know, although it would be nice if we could keep skating and then smoke a little, like, that was my plan if I chickened out--"

"Shitty?" Lardo asks. She says it quietly, so he has to lean close. Heart pounding, Lardo presses her lips right against the curve of his ear, and she shivers when she feels _him_ shiver. "Here's how it works. This is a date. I'm gonna kiss you, and you're gonna shut up and skate with me."

Oh, they'll probably have to talk about feelings and graduation eventually, but Lardo's conquered two fears today. She throws her arms around Shitty's neck and loses her hard-won balance, but Shitty steadies her with his hands on either side of her waist. Lardo laughs as she kisses him, his mustache tickling her face, and the snow is _exactly_ damn high enough to make it feel like the whole Pond is just for them, one shining space for them to figure things out.


End file.
